Here Without You
by rubiksbox
Summary: Sequel to Cherished Memories, follows the events of what happens between the time Hermione and Ron leave Harry to go back to England to the day Harry shows up at Hermione's door. Also explains how Ron found Harry.
1. Explaining To Trina

Here Without You- Chapter 1

Explaining To Trina

Author's Notes- This is a sequel to Cherished Memories and follows the events that happen starting the Monday after Hermione and Ron leave Harry's house until the time when Harry shows up at Hermione's door. Thanks to Quinzy for giving me the plot bunny to write this.

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Harry Potter.

"Hey, Boss? You O.K.?"

Harry lifted his head from his hands and looked blankly at Trina. She saw his eyes were red, as if he'd been crying or hadn't slept in a few days. She entered his office and came to stand right in front of his desk.

"What happened?" she asked in alarm. "Is it Morgan's case? Is the judge going to drop it now that Jeffery is ?" Harry shook his head, then dropped it back into his hands.

"No," he simply answered. Trina decided to let the subject drop for now. She knew from experience that Harry would tell her when he felt like talking.

"Where are your friends? I noticed they aren't around today."

"They went home," came his muffled response. She noticed that he seemed to choke on the words, and knew that she was going to have to force him to talk. She frowned and came around his desk and put an arm around his shoulders, pulling him out of the chair.

"Come on, Harry," she said.

"What?" he asked, his voice dispondant.

"We're going into the kitchen and you are going to talk to me, that's what." She dragged him to his feet and pulled him down the corridor. They entered the kitchen and Trina shoved him into one of the chairs at the table. "Now what's up?" she asked, going to the refrigerator to get a bottle of water.

"I've made the biggest mistake of my life."

"What'd you do? Misfile one of your cases?" Trina joked, returning to the table and placing the bottle in front of Harry as she sat down. He stared at it and started picking at the label.

"I let her go."

"You let who go?" Trina wasn't any less confused. The only person she could think of that would have made this much of an impact on him was... "Morgan? B'cause if so, Harry, you know you can't get involved like that with her. It would compromise the case and the judge would have to drop it." Harry threw the bottle of water across the room as he jumped out of his chair. It hit the wall and broke open, its contents sloshing down the paint to the floor.

"It's not Morgan, damnit!" he yelled, stalking over to the window and leaning against the sill. Trina stared at him in shock. Harry had never talked to her like that before.

"O.K.," she said hesitantly.

"It's Hermione," he whispered.

"Oh. Ooohhhh!" Trina said as she realized now. Hermione was the one that he'd been talking about for the last week whenever his two friends had been elsewhere in the house, and Harry's eyes had lit up whenever he'd heard her name or her voice, and he'd practically glowed when he saw her.

"I love her, Trina. I can't believe that I could be so stupid!" Harry hit himself on the forehead.

"You're stupid because you love her? That doesn't make any sense."

"No, I'm stupid because I let her leave Friday. I didn't do anything to keep her with me!" He pushed away from the window and turned to face her. "I didn't say anything, I didn't even fight!" He smacked his head again. "Why? Why am I so stupid?"

"You're not stupid, just confused, and stop hitting yourself, or I'm going to do it for you," Trina said, getting a small smile out of her employer.

"How am I confused?" Harry asked.

"If you didn't do anything to get her to stay here with you, then I would say you're a bit confused, Boss."

"Huh. Hermione would have called that stupid." Trina smiled ruefully.

"Why don't you tell me exactly what happened?" she said, patting the table where he'd been sitting a minute earlier. He resumed his seat with a sigh.

"O.K. Friday, I was sitting in the other room watching television, and I heard the two of them lugging something down the stairs. I went to see what was going on, and they had brought down their suitcases. I asked where they were going, and Ron told me that they were going to make the portkey connection back to England." Trina interrupted him.

"Portkey?" she asked.

"That's how we travel over large distances without taking planes, trains or boats, remember?" Trina knew that Harry was a wizard. She and a few other people he relied upon in his line of work- and he knew they would never reveal his secret to anyone.

"Oh, yeah," she replied, nodding.

"Hermione asked if I was ready, and I told her that I wasn't going. She wanted to know why not, and I said that there wasn't anything for me in London, that I'd just be going back to everyone in the magical world wondering where I'd been and hounding me for the story of what I've been doing for the last three years. She reminded me that she lived in London, and her job was there- she had no intention of leaving it." He sighed heavily.

"I can understand that she wouldn't want to leave all that she's ever known, Harry," Trina said.

"Yeah, I can too. But that's not the worst of it. I went on to tell her that she'd wasted her time coming here to take me back, and she informed me that if I couldn't take her living in England and our relationship as compensation to all the attention that I would be recieving, that she didn't want to talk to me anymore and for me to have a nice life. Then she Disapperated and Ron started on me."

"What did he say?"

"He told me that Hermione loved me and that since they'd known me for as long as they had, that they'd already gotten a lot of media attention, and that she didn't care about that. Then he told me I should think about it, and he left." He brought one hand up to rest his chin on, sighing again.

"I stand corrected," Trina said with a small smile.

"About what?" Harry asked.

"You are stupid."

"That's what I've been telling you," he laughed mirthlessly. "I let her leave without even fighting for her. I didn't even make the attempt!" He slumped back in his chair.

"Why didn't you?"

"I don't know. I guess I thought she'd be willing to stay here with me. Or at least work out something where she'd come see me a lot."

"Uh, that more than likely wouldn't be possible. It would get extremely expensive for her having to travel back and forth all the time just for you." Harry chuckled.

"Yeah, I know. But I wasn't thinking about the expense at the time. But I was planning on maybe going to see her every once in a while. In secret of course. I wouldn't have wanted the press to find out about it." His receptionist shot him a look.

"What is it with you and the press?" she asked, sarcasm dripping into her words. "I mean, really, Harry, you'd be willing to give up the woman you love just so you could have privacy? Now that's stupid. If from what you tell me is true, and you are as famous in England as you say," Harry looked at her in shock. "Then I would have thought you'd be used to it by now. I'm not saying you have to like it. Just be able to get past them butting into your life all the time. If celebrities did that here in the States, people would start writing that they're rude, snotty and start to dislike them. You don't want that to happen to you, right?"

"Well, that's sort of the whole point. If I'm not in England, they can't write anything about me. Not without coming here to find me, and I know that Ron and Hermione won't tell anyone where I am." His heart contracted painfully when he mentioned her name- he clutched at it briefly with a small groan. He stared across the room when it had passed, and grimaced when he saw the large wet spot on the far wall. He stood up, walked over and picked up the pieces of the bottle he'd thrown.

"How did they find you, anyway?" Trina asked as Harry started mopping up the puddle on the floor with a dish towel.

"Ron told me that they'd been searching almost the whole time since I left. Then it was his brothers Charlie and Bill, but they had no leads, and gave up soon after Ron went into Auror training. He started it up again when he graduated from the academy, in secret of course, because he didn't want the whole Ministry to know what he was up to. He started by running checks on my magical signature. See, the Ministry of Magic keeps track of all underage witches and wizards by putting a trace on them when they're born, so when they start school, they don't use magic at home or in front of Muggles. The trace is lifted when they turn seventeen, as we are considered s in the eyes of the Ministry, but our magical signatures stay on file until we die."

"How would it stay on file? I mean it's not something that you can touch, right?" Harry tossed the sodden towel into the sink and turned to face Trina.

"The actual signature isn't, no. But the records of it are. That's what he was looking for."

"And how is it that he was the one who thought of looking for you that way? Because it seems just a bit funny that no one else would have first."

"That's because it didn't occur to anyone else. They just all figured that I had gone into hiding after the final battle with Voldemort so that his followers wouldn't try to attack me. But that's the most idiotic thing I have ever heard. I finished my last year at Hogwarts before I went into hiding? What sense would that make? Anyway, I don't know that Ron really thought to look for me that way, he had just been sent down to the Trace Office to return a couple of files. One of them was alphabetically right before me, and he stopped to have a look at my file. He told me that it said that all traces of my signature had left Great Britain, so he knew that I was either out of the country, or not using magic." He was silent for a few minutes. Trina knew this couldn't be the end of the story, Harry hadn't told her how he'd been found yet!

"So, what happened next?"

"Ron knew that I wasn't going to give up using magic, so that meant I was no longer in Great Britain. He went to Charlie and Bill that night and told them what he'd found. They agreed to help him look for my signature in Europe. They figured that I wouldn't have gone too far. Charlie started in Romania, he was working with dragons there at the time, and Bill went to France with his wife, Fleur. They made their way all over the European continent, and realized that they'd been wrong. This took them about eight months. By then, according to Ron, the rest of the magical world had stopped wondering where I was and had gotten on with their lives. But Ron and his brothers didn't give up. They knew I was out there somewhere. Bill asked some of his friends to help him search across Asia, Charlie began in Australia and Africa. When those didn't pan out, the two of them went to Antarctica on a far-fetched hunch. I guess they thought that if I really wanted to hide, that would be the place to do it as there aren't that many people around. Now two years had passed. Bill wanted to go home to be with Fleur and their new baby, Megan, Fleur had a difficult delivery with her and Bill regreted not being there for most of her pregnancy, and Charlie had to get back to Romania, or risk losing his position altogether. So Ron took up the search again. He used his brothers' contacts to search the last two continents. They searched South America first, that took about half a year, then started on North America. Finally after another five and a half months, they got a break. They were in Indiana, near Fort Wayne, and they detected a magical signature. In an area where there are no wizards. They went in to investigate further, and found that it matched mine. They wanted to report to Ron, but not until they were sure that I was still in the area. I had been there for a lead on the Hertley case and had needed to use magic to light up the basement where I caught his wife with that truck dealer?" Trina nodded.

"I remember," she said.

"Well, they tracked it to the Ohio border and informed Ron when my signature started to get stronger. Two days later, they hit the jackpot, so to speak, and found the source, me of course, here in Bryan. Ron booked the next portkey to America, grabbed Hermione, and came after me. You know the rest, as Hermione showed up on my front doorstep the next day."

"She showed up wanting to use the bathroom," Trina laughed. "But what made me laugh is that she told me afterwards that she needed your help when I told her you were a private detective. She said she was looking for her friend. Turns out it was you, huh?" Harry nodded and smiled sadly. "Why did she come with Ron? What was her motive?"

"Because of what happened our last night at Hogwarts," he said, returning to the table.

"And what was that, if you don't mind my asking? You've never said anything about why it was that you came to the States, and I didn't want to pry, but..." She shrugged.

"It's all right, Trina. It's all come out to Ron and Hermione now, the reason I left England. I might as well tell you, too." He sat down. "Our last night, I was trying to comfort Hermione after Ron and I had returned from getting a couple cases of firewhiskey in Hogsmeade. She had just lost her parents then, and hadn't been eating anything. I was worried that she'd make herself sick, or worse, and went to talk to her, try to get her to eat something, you know? She didn't seem to be listening to me, so I was just going to go to bed, maybe try again before we all left the next morning, when I heard her start crying behind me. And I don't mean just crying, I mean she was on the verge of hyperventilating! I ran to where the firewhiskey was and brought it back to her, giving her a shot to calm her nerves, but when she saw what it was that she was drinking, she grabbed the bottle and started to suck it dry. I took from her, and told her that she hadn't eaten in two days, she grabbed it back and she told me go get her something, then." He chuckled and sat silently for a few seconds, then continued.

"I did as she asked, but when I got back to her with the plate, she started towards the portrait hole, taking two more bottles with her. She told me when I questioned her where we were going that it was nowhere special. We headed down to the Black Lake and sat under a tree when she started crying again. I hugged her until she pulled away to start on one of the other two bottles she'd brought with us. She'd already drained the first one. We talked a bit about what we were going to do now that we were leaving Hogwarts, and she said that she knew why she was drinking, but not why I was." He smiled thoughtfully.

"I said it was because I didn't know what to do with myself anymore, since my life had been planned from the time I was a toddler. But I had fufilled my destiny, so what was I supposed to do now? I didn't know if I wanted to be an Auror anymore, that was from when Voldemort was still a threat. And until a few days ago, I always believed what happened next was because we were both drunk- Hermione asked me to kiss her. I asked why, and she said she just wanted to know what it was like because she'd seen me kissing Ron's sister while we were going together in my sixth year. I started to tell her it didn't make sense, and she grabbed me, kissing me, and the next thing I knew, the two of us were laying on the ground. Well, of course, being a seventeen-year-old, male and a little under the influence, it affected me." Trina smiled and nodded, thinking that she knew what had happened now.

"She changed her mind, didn't she? Realized she was with her best friend and decided she didn't want to ruin it?"

"No, actually. I pulled away and tried to hide it, and go back up to the castle, but she stopped me. She climbed onto my lap and started kissing me again, telling me that she was flattered and wanted to do this with me. Then she took her shirt off, and I'm sure you can guess where it went from there."

Trina was confused. "Well, I don't get it, really. If you two had by that tree," Harry met her eyes and nodded. "Then what happened to make you run off? You said that you were in love with Hermione, right?"

"Yes, and I was then, too. I didn't know it until after she'd gone to bed, but I thought that she'd wake up in the morning and want to kill me. I didn't think that we'd been in the right state of mind to do that. We were both drunk, she was grieving, and I felt like I'd taken advantage of it, even though it was offered to me. See, all my life I've had sort of a guilt complex. I've always thought that people that got close to me always died, or else something bad would happen to them. Now I thought that I had done the bad thing, and decided to leave before she woke up and cursed me."

"You really thought she would?"

"Oh, yeah. You don't know Hermione like I do. She gets mad at you, you're going to feel it for a week. Or at the very least, hear about it. It wasn't until I talked to Ron this past week that I knew she'd been crying on the train, and whispering my name the whole time. He said she'd been pretty catatonic otherwise, not talking to anyone else."

Something seemed to click in his head.

"What is it?" Trina asked.

"She was in love with me then," Harry said softly, shock on his face. He jumped up from the table and ran from the room towards his office.

"Where are you going!" Trina called.

"Clear my schedule for today, Trina," he answered. "I have to write a letter to Hermione, I have to get her back!"


	2. The Undeliverable Letter

Here Without You- Chapter 2

The Undeliverable Letter

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Harry Potter.

Ron Weasley read through the letter in his hand a second time and looked at the envelope bearing Hermione's name.

"I don't know Hermione's address, or I would have Hedwig take it to her. Could you forward it for me with Pig, if you still have him?" he read the ending out loud. "Sorry, Harry. But Hermione isn't talking to anyone right now. Not even me." His wife walked into the room, followed by his mother and soon to be brother in law.

"Not even you what, Ron?" asked Molly.

"I just got a letter from Harry. He wants me to forward this to Hermione." He held up the envelope.

"Hermione isn't accepting any owls," Ginny reminded him.

"I know, but Harry doesn't. And from the look of poor Hedwig, it's going to be a day or two before I can tell him." Five heads turned to the snowy owl, dozing on the back of a chair at the table. She'd flown halfway around the world to deliver her master's letter, and had dropped off to sleep almost before Ron had taken it from her.

"Whenever you do it, I would remind him that it's _his _fault that she doesn't want to talk to anyone," his sister snarked. "He was the one that told her he wasn't coming back for any reason, even if it meant that he would be in a happy relationship with Hermione." She crossed the room to pick up Harry's owl and move her to a safer place, the top of a cupboard, so that she wouldn't get knocked over when the rest of the Weasleys came for dinner. This didn't stop the poor bird from being shocked out of her nap and hooting indignantly when two children came barreling into the kitchen a minute later, shouting at the tops of their lungs.

"William, Megan! I have told you to calm down, or you're going to bed!" their father called from the back yard. He entered the house seconds later, carrying two bags and a blanket. "You sure you want to watch them tonight, Mum? They got into some sugar at a friend's house earlier. Fleur and I haven't been able to get them to sit still for more than a minute since lunch." His mother smiled as her grandchildren streaked around the room.

"Of course, Bill. They'll use up their energy now and sleep through the night. Probably start nodding off in the middle of dinner."

"I appreciate this. Fleur and I have been wanting to go out for the evening for a while now. She's exhausted with just these two, and has no idea how you and Dad raised the seven of us!" His brother and sister laughed.

"You know good and well that most of the time oneor more of us was always at Hogwarts by the time Ginny was born," Ron said.

"True, but there were the summer holidays," Ginny added.

"Then we were all outside, playing Quidditch, degnoming the garden, and basically just... I should stop now."

"Why?" Bill asked.

"Just remembered that we all acted like William and Megan."

"Not Percy," Ginny tittered.

"Not Percy, what?" the person himself asked, coming down the stairs with his fiancée.

"Nothing," his siblings quickly answered. Penelope took Percy's hand and led him to the table, smiling. She'd heard the conversation while she'd been waiting for him upstairs.

"Well, I'd better get going," Bill said. "Fleur is waiting for me." He waved goodbye and headed back out the door. William and Megan didn't even notice that their father had left. They continued to run around the crowded room until Percy and Penelope grabbed them and tossed them, squealing into the air.

"Percy Weasley! I have told you a million times not to do that to my grandchildren!" Molly scolded her son, but softened it with a smile. "At least not in the house. They might hit something. Take them outside and help them work off their energy." The room became less crowded as four more people went outside, followed by the sound of the childrens' screams of laughter as Percy began chasing them around the back garden.

"I wish dad could have seen the turnaround the final battle brought in Percy," Ginny said, her eyes on the back door. "He would have been thrilled to know all of his children were friends again."

"I don't know if I would call what we have with Percy a friendship," Ron said, reading Harry's letter again. "More like we just treat him as what he is to us."

"And what's that?"

"A pain in the a..."

"Ronald," Molly said warningly.

"Neck," Ron amended.

"So what are you going to do about Harry and Hermione?" Ginny asked.

"I'm going to have to write him back and tell him that I can't deliver it to her. I will tell him about it being his fault that I can't do it, so don't start on that again," he said as his sister opened her mouth. He put the letter in his shirt pocket. "But it's going to have to wait until after dinner."

Two hours later, Ron was sitting at the kitchen table again. The room was now silent as William and Megan were tucked in bed, Ginny and Dean were wandering around the forest bordering the Burrow, Molly was finishing some mending in the next room while listening to the Witching Hour on the wireless, and Percy, Pennelope, Charlie and the twins had gone off somewhere. No one knew quite where that was, as they had been secretive about their destination. He read over what he'd written.

Harry,

I'm sorry, but I cannot forward the letter to Hermione. She isn't taking any owls right now, or speaking to anyone. You know the reason why. I'm sorry if this is going to sound rude or if it makes you hate me, but right now, I don't really care if you do or don't.

It's your own damn fault that she doesn't want to talk to you, Harry! You were being stubborn and just plain stupid. What the hell were you thinking? Hermione loves you and deserves better than what you did to her. If you had any sense in your head, you'd realize that and fix your mistake yourself! You know as well as we do that the media is going to be following you until the day you die, and us as well for being your friends. That's never going to change. Hermione and I have gotten used to it, and it doesn't bother us anymore. I don't see why it still bothers _you_.

The most I can do to help you is to give you Hermione's address, but I don't know if I want to do that right now. She's hurting, Harry. More than I've ever seen her hurt, and it's not right that you are the one who did it to her this time. You claim that you love her, then prove it! You have to be the one to make the next move. And it better be a good one, since she won't accept a simple apology. What you did was cruel. She wanted to spend her life with you and reveal to the whole Wizarding world that she was the one that had captured Harry Potter's heart. She wanted to let them all know that she was in love with you! But you took that away from her, and I don't think she's going to be too forgiving right now. So whatever you do, make it right with Hermione, Harry. Fix this mess you're in, and do it soon. For Hermione's sake as much as yours.

Ron

He looked over the letter twice more and added a postscript at the end containing Hermione's address.

"Just don't make me feel like it was a mistake giving it to you," he whispered as he folded the letter, sealed it and wrote Harry's name on the front. He got up and took the letter over to where Hedwig was sleeping, picked her up and carried her up to his bedroom.

"I thought you weren't going to be able to send a letter to him for a few days," Luna said as he entered the blue and white room. He'd moved out of his room up near the attic after Percy had moved in with Penelope, taking his brother's room instead, as he'd married Luna two days later. The violent orange colored room was now a storage room for more of the twins products and good luck to anyone that tried to get through there without having something jump out of one of the boxes or explode in multicolored smoke whenever you picked it up.

"I can't, but it wasn't right to leave Hedwig down in the kitchen where she might get knocked around in the morning. Harry would get upset if I return his owl to him with her feathers all ruffled, and her refusing to deliver another letter for him, wouldn't he?" Luna agreed as her husband placed the still sleeping owl on a perch by the window. He turned back to her with a small smile.

"Did you say what you needed to in the letter?" she asked, nodding to the paper still clutched in his hand.

"Yeah, I think so. Now it's up to him." He crossed the room and joined his wife on the bed. "Why are you in bed so early, it's only eight?"

"The baby is making me more than a little nauseous, and I feel better when I'm lying down." Luna patted the small swell of her stomach.

"Mum said that she'd help with that," Ron reminded her.

"I know, but I don't want to use magic. Hermione read in a book while Fleur was expecting Megan that if you use too much magic to control discomfort during pregnancy, it could make your child's magic weak." 

"How?"

"I'm not sure, but it involves something like the child would be relying on the magic it feels from the mother instead of developing its own."

"Oh, so that's why mum didn't want Fleur to use magic with William. I guess she told her that back then." He rolled over onto his back as he heard Hedwig moving around and saw that the owl had woken up. He got up to check on her.

"How long do you think before you can send the letter back to Harry?" Luna asked.

"From the looks of Hedwig, maybe another day or two." Ron gave the owl some food and water, then told his wife he'd be downstairs if she needed him, and went down to talk to his mother.

Two days later, he brought Hedwig down to the kitchen with him to breakfast. She was much more alert now than she'd been when she'd arrived, and seemed eager to return to her master. She knew that there was a response to her delivery, so she held out her leg to allow Ron to attatch it before opening the window so she could take off. It took her another four days to fly across England, the Atlantic Ocean, and finally the nearly five states to reach her destination. She fluttered into her master's house through an open window, and landed on the footboard of the bed that stood in the middle of the room. She hooted softly to the person that was still sleeping. Harry stirred and sat up when he heard her.

"Hedwig!" he exclaimed, reaching out for her. She hopped over to him so he could take the letter from her leg. He thanked her, and she flew off to sleep on her perch at the other side of the room. Harry opened the letter and read it, his emerald eyes growing dark with anger, then sadness.

"Oh, Hedwig," he said to the now slumbering owl. "What have I done? How am I going to get her back?"


	3. Hermione's Discovery

Here Without You- Chapter 3

Hermione's Discovery

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Harry Potter.

Hermione walked into her kitchen the first week of August, the idea of breakfast not really appealing to her. She had been feeling a bit ill for the last few days, but she wrote the cause off as being Harry's birthday had just passed. She missed him terribly, but wasn't about to contact him after the way he'd acted in June. Her stomach gave an unpleasant lurch as she perused the contents of her cupboards.

"His birthday was three days ago," she told her unhappy body. "I'm sure that Ron and Luna sent him an owl. There was no need for me to as well." This made her stomach turn even more, and she suddenly felt as if she was going to be sick. She groaned and rushed to the sink, making it just in time.

"What is wrong with me?" she croaked as she washed the mess down the drain and rinsed out her mouth. "I can't believe that my stomach would be acting like this just because I miss Harry." She groaned again as her stomach churned slightly. "It's _his_ fault we're not together, and until he can realize that and make up to me for it, I'm having no contact with him, so you can just settle down."

"Who or what can settle down?" Hermione jumped. She hadn't known that someone was in her flat with her. She spun around and sighed with relief when she saw who it was.

"Ron! You scared the daylights out of me!" she admonished. Ron smiled apologetically and sat at the table, Ginny following behind him a few steps.

"Sorry, Hermione," Ginny said. "We just wanted to come see how you are, since you've started letting people in again, and all."

"I'm fine," Hermione said, fighting the urge to clutch at her roiling midsection. She saw that Ginny was now beginning to expand, and she was sure that the other expectant Weasley women were as well. Correction, Ginny was now a Thomas, but she'd been born a Weasley, so it remained the same to them all.

"You don't _look_ fine," Ginny said, examining her friend's face. "You look pale, and a bit green." As soon as the words had left Ginny's mouth, Hermione had to turn as she became sick once more.

"Hermione! You should be in bed!" Ron exclaimed, getting up from his chair to take her back to her room.

"I'm fine, really! This just started today. I'm feeling better now, honestly," Hermione retorted, taking the towel that Ginny held out to her and wiping her mouth with it. "I was just thinking that I wished we'd all been able to see Harry on his birthday, and my stomach started doing a bit of a tumbling act. It's more than likely because of the fact that we had him back for that short time, but it was _him_ that decided to not come back to England, and it's _his_ fault that we weren't all together for it the third year in a row."

Ginny looked at her brother behind Hermione's back. She knew that there was more to this situation than missing Harry's birthday. And she was going to find out what it was.

"Ron, why don't you go along to the Ministry, and tell Kingsley that Hermione won't be in today?" Ron nodded and turned to leave the kitchen.

"What? There's no need for me to miss work, I'm fine!" But she wasn't; the moment Ron left, she became sick once more. "Dammit!" she spat when she'd rinsed out the taste.

"Hermione, what's going on?"

"What are you talking about?"

"I mean I've seen the way you've been the last few days, and I know it's more than just the fact that Harry's birthday passed and he wasn't here. You've been looking ill for the last week." The redhead sat at the table. "Is there something that you want to talk about?"

"What's there to discuss? I'm mad at Harry because he didn't want to come back to England because he didn't want to have to deal with the press again. End of story."

"Then why are you making yourself sick worrying about it?"

"I'm not worrying, I haven't even really thought about it for the last few days. At least not until Harry's birthday."

"You've been sick since Harry's birthday?" Ginny got up and crossed the room to examine her friend's face.

"I didn't say that, Ginny. I said that I'd not thought of being mad at Harry until his birthday." Hermione didn't want to admit that this wasn't the first day that she'd become sick, she might have to miss more work, and after the time she'd spent in America, she'd had to rush to catch up with her cases. She was in no hurry to do that again. She submitted to Ginny's inspection, though she believed it to be purely unnecessary. "Are you finished?" she asked when the other woman had backed away.

"For now," Ginny said.

"For now," Hermione repeated. She turned to her left, intending to make tea, but got only as far as picking up the kettle when Ron reentered the kitchen.

"You're clear for today, but they said that if you are still sick tomorrow, you have to send them an owl so they can put it into your file."

"Ron, can I talk to you for a second?" his sister asked. She started to the door. "Alone?" He nodded and followed her out to the front room. Hermione stared after them for a second, and frowned before returning to her task. She filled the kettle and put it onto a burner, lit it and gathered the rest of the makings for the tea. She heard Ron and Ginny come in behind her, but didn't turn until their soft conversation attracted her attention.

"What are you two whispering about?"

"Nothing," they both replied, just a bit too quickly to be believed. Hermione looked at them over her shoulder as she put bags into each of the mugs on her counter.

"Nothing, huh? Then why did you have to go out of the room if it was nothing?"

"Well," Ginny started, stepping away from her brother and coming to Hermione's side. "I was just thinking that there could be a reason that you're getting sick."

"I told you, it's nothing. I just miss Harry, and it's the stress that goes along with that and having to catch up on the work that I missed while Ron and I were in America. That's all."

"Hermione, we all know that you were caught up with your work less than three days after we got back, so you can't use that one as an excuse," Ron informed her as he sat at the table. Ginny turned Hermione around.

"Ron told me what happened while you were with Harry." she said, inclinging her head behind her. "All of it."

"All right, what's that got to do with now?"

"Well, it might be more than you realize, Hermione. He told me what happened your last night at Hogwarts, and about how Harry never got involved with anyone else, just like you. About how you and Harry slept together about four or five days after you found him."

"Ginny what is the point of this?"

"I'm coming to it. But I have to ask first. Did you and Harry sleep together more than once during the time you were together? I mean after that first night?" Hermione nodded, remembering painfully the wonderful hours she'd spent in Harry's arms, knowing that he loved her. But it hadn't been enough to make him want to come back.

"Yes, we did. But I don't see what bearing that would have on today." Ginny and Ron exchanged a look, much to Hermione's irritation. "What is going on with you two?"

"One more question," Ginny said, turning her attention back to Hermione. "Do you think there's any chance that you may be pregnant?" Hermione's brown eyes widened with shock.

"Pregnant?" she choked. "What... Why... Why on earth would you think that I could possibly be pregnant?" But now that she thought of it, it _did_ seem to fit. She'd missed two periods, she was was tired all the time, nauseous... "Oh Merlin!" she said, one hand going to her stomach, the other covering her mouth as she remembered the night after she and Harry had gone to Eddie Merlot's.

"Is it possible?" Ginny asked again. Meeting her friend's eyes, Hermione could do nothing but nod. "So don't you think we should be doing something to find out?"

"Yes," Hermione answered, lowering the hand at her mouth to meet the one over her stomach. "If it's true that I _am_ pregnant, the longer I go without the care of a doctor, the riskier it would be for the baby."

"First we'd better be finding out if there's a baby to be worrying about, shouldn't we?" Ron asked, standing up. Ginny steered Hermione out of the kitchen and to the door of her bedroom.

"You go get changed," she indicated the Ministry robes the other woman was wearing. "And we'll be waiting for you in the front room."

Three hours later, they returned to the flat, Ginny carrying a bag of shopping, Hermione smiling, Ron sullenly silent because of an ultimatum that had been given to him and his sister before they'd left the doctor's office.

"I want you both to promise me," their bushy-haired friend had requested. "That if the test turns out positive, neither one of you, or anyone in your family will say anything to Harry about it. It's _my_ place to tell him, no one else's." Her friends had agreed, but Ron knew that Hermione certainly had no intention of telling Harry he was going to be a father.


End file.
